“I can’t believe your ego. I don’t have to take this. There are other rooms.” She pressed several buttons, and left the room.
His peace had been ruined because he didn’t trust her. Turning off his machine, he followed her, finding her standing in the weight room. She looked like a fish out of water, exactly as Sarah had described her.
“Do you have a clue what you’re doing?”
“God, do you own this room as well?” She walked back into the main hall, and there were several people walking toward them. Grabbing her hand, he pushed her into one of the private sauna rooms. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You don’t have a clue what you’re doing here, so tell me who put you up to this.”
“No one?”
“You just happened to be at Bruce’s gym out of pure coincidence.”
“No, and I don’t have to tell you.”
“I’ll make your life hell at school!”
She glared. “I dare you, and I’ll make sure every single girl knows you’re here on a Saturday.”
They both stared at each other, neither of them showing signs of winning. “I’m here because it’s the only place I get peace and quiet. You must have heard what Jessica did?”
“I heard about the scene. Who hasn’t?”
“Exactly. I come here so I can work out and be left alone. Now, I’ve told you why, you tell me?”
She sighed. “I just want to point out that you interrupted my training time, not the other way around. You could have run anywhere else, and I wouldn’t care.”
“Fine, just tell me.”
“I’m doing it as a surprise to my mom.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Look at me. I know you all call me fat, cow, whale, chubby. I embarrass my mom, so here I am, trying to make her proud.”
He’d heard all the names she’d been called, and he’d laughed at a couple of them. But really he didn’t see a problem with her weight. So she was a couple of pounds heavier than people would like, so what? He happened to like her tits. There were many times during gym at school where he’d stared as her tits bounced. Out of all of the girls in high school, she had the biggest rack.
Damn.
Now his gaze landed on her breasts.
“Seriously? My eyes are up here, you creep.”
“You don’t have a clue what you’re doing.”
“So? I’ll figure it out, and come college there will be a dazzling new me, and there will be no sobbing in sight.”
“What you’re trying to do is lose weight. Where is your trainer? What are your starting points? What about your diet? There’s a lot more to losing weight than just getting on a treadmill, and hoping for the best. You want to be the best that you can be, then you need some help.”
“I don’t want to make this complicated, okay? This was just about doing something in private with no one knowing, and now you know.”
“Believe it or not, I won’t blab.”
“Sure you won’t.”
Her sarcasm was grating on his nerves.
Chapter Two
This couldn’t be happening. Her perfectly ordered plan of losing weight without anyone knowing was about to be completely ruined. Elsa forced back the tears as she stared back at the star of her high school.
This sucked.
“I won’t. I’m not a fucking liar.”
“Don’t swear at me.” They had never spoken more than a handful of words at each other during their time in high school.
“How do I know you’re not going to tell everyone?”
“You keep my appearance here quiet, and I won’t tell.”
“Fine. I can do that.”
“Good. Can I go now, or are you going to lecture me about something else?” she asked.
“No, you can go.” He released her arm, and she made her way back toward the treadmill.
The buzz she was getting had disappeared.
The entire encounter with Noah had ruined what she wanted to achieve. She’d done an hour, and that was better than nothing. Leaving the treadmill, she made her way into the changing room. Instead of sticking around to change, she grabbed her stuff, and headed out into the parking lot.
Sarah was chipper, asking how she got on.
Elsa did her best to smile, and say thank you, but all she wanted to do was escape. Maybe get a large tub of ice cream on the way back.
“Elsa, wait.”
She tensed up, glancing behind her to see Noah rushing toward her. This was the last thing she needed.
“What is it?” she asked, turning to look at him.
He ran up to her, and she refused to be drawn to his rock hard body. This was not her. She wanted something more than a pretty face to look at.
“You’re serious about losing weight? This wasn’t some joke to find out where I was?”
“How can you even walk with an ego that size? Yes, this was about me, and what I wanted to do for my mother. It wasn’t about you.”